Valsequillo 2: Revenge of the Diatoms

[hardaker]

Countrcultr -- "what about valsequillo? is it worth referencing, has it held up?"

Hi. The great thing about the film is that is shows how many ways it has held up. Even though a mainstreamer (Waters) has tried to defuse the discovery by calling into question the integrity of the USGS team of geologists involved with the discoveries, and misrepresent much of what has come before, and selectively ignoring the other half of the Hueyatlaco site as well as the other two excavated sites located lower down in the geological columns, he ended up tying his own panties into a knot when confronted by the diatom evidence. His own interpretation of the geology painted him into an inescapable corner -- where are the modern diatoms in his alleged modern beds? There are only pre-Wisconsin/Sangomon diatoms in the mix. Waters says they contaminated the modern sediments during their formation. If so, there should also be modern diatoms in his strats. There are none. That is now the concrete bottom line question on the table for all scientists to consider.

A great problem has been chronometric dates. The mineralized bones have a problematic legacy. And these were found at most if not all of the 80-90 sites that were found during the 1962 survey. The notes are non-existent for this fieldwork, but as an archaeologist, I figure that if they had found recent/still green paleo bone site, that it would have been chosen for one of the sites to be excavated.

With respect to the nature of the lithics, and the usual claim they are out of place (OOPs), but recent finds in East Africa have become a precedent for the in situ technological evolution that occurred at Valsequillo. See the image at the bottom of my short essay, On Suppression. The bifaces shown from 200-300ky mirror the bifacing on the upper Hueyatlaco specimens. Prior to these E. African points, there were smaller, cruder points made out of retouched blades. Just like we have at the three excavated Valsequillo sites. At El Horno, no points were found at all. (So it is not only the precious art that was ignored, it was this case of regional, in situ pre-Clovis technological evolution that was panned.)
http://earthmeasure.com/on_suppression.html

The huge academic lunacy: using the dating difficulty as a half-assed reason to ignore the region. The art alone should have brought in the U.N.!!!

Neither Mexico or US has seemed to care about the sites for going-on a half century because the politics is front and center, and the desire not to wear egg on their unified faces which would surely come if the truth of Valsequillo ever became known en masse. For these officials to have ignored the fact that mineralized bone art was actually discovered by 1960 -- and ignored it for over 50 years!! -- How can you live that down and still get paid teaching or researching archaeology? It is self-censorship at its worst. The book covers the Lorenzo sabotage and the subsequent legacy, and currently a lot of Lorenzo students run INAH, and have a loyalty towards him. They do not wish to make him look bad. All the while, the human legacy at Valsequillo is put on hold. It is our sad misfortune to live in an age of New World archaeological insecurity and wrongly placed loyalties. But archaeology is a social science, and by these childish ego-driven attitudes towards the most important New World site ever (ever) -- it only goes to show that US archaeology is a not-ready-for-prime-time science; i.e. it is theory driven and not evidence driven.

My book covers most of the angles, but if you would prefer, please visit my overview of the Valsequillo discoveries at
http://www.earthmeasure.com/first-american.html

hope that wasn't too long of an answer.

[countrcultur]

thanks chris. Did you say that the points are very similar to ones found in east africa dating around the same time? Whats the connection? meaning how do you and your colleagues believe these people came to be in valsequillo?

[Minimalist]

The people don't have to be in Valsequillo - knowledge is transferable. People can learn by watching and imitating. Native Americans in the Plains did not domesticate the horse but they certainly learned how to make use of it.

As kb said above, once you accept the possibility of deep-water sailing all things become possible. And as I said above, that South Equatorial current between Africa and South America/Central America looks like a very plausible "highway."

[countrcultur]

Thanks min. So it is known that the currents would exist pre ice-age as they do now?

[kbs2244]

The basics of the major ocean currents would not be affected by the ice sheets.
Local disruptions yes.
But water reacts to the Earths rotation pretty much the same through out time.
Even more so near the Equator.

[countrcultur]

The basics of the major ocean currents would not be affected by the ice sheets.
Local disruptions yes.
But water reacts to the Earths rotation pretty much the same through out time.
Even more so near the Equator.

cool, thanks. I am just trying to get a sense of what new theories they may have drawn from valsequillo but i guess the fight for recognition has consumed the people involved. I am interested in southern first theories of people in america.

[hardaker]

" Did you say that the points are very similar to ones found in east africa dating around the same time? Whats the connection? meaning how do you and your colleagues believe these people came to be in valsequillo?"

We might not have a firm date for the Valsequillo artifacts. It looks like a minimum is 80,000, i.e. the sangamon interglacial. Other dates came back at 300k. What was important about the African bifaces is that it provided a technological precedent for Valsequillo's modern technology. Whether or not they actually came from Africa is extremely unknown. What is absolutely incredible about the Valsequillo lithics, however, is that they evolve over time in a way similar to the African Middle Stone Age. Trying to figure out who the heck they actually were or where they came from is something you should only discuss over some serious beer. There is so much down there, and so little was actually excavated. It is a secondary concern right now to speculate where they came from compared to the fact that someone was indeed there so long ago.

[hardaker]

be that as it may, the Atlantic currents, both ways, might turn out to be a big player. If there is navigation at 880k at Flores, yeah, all bets are off. What was learned in the intervening 500-600k? And would the Canary Islands still have been a good take off point? Seafaring is a game changer. Walking from Beringia to Chile has been estimated to take about two thousand years by a Berkeley professor years ago. By boat, 5-6 years along the coast.

[Farpoint]

be that as it may, the Atlantic currents, both ways, might turn out to be a big player. If there is navigation at 880k at Flores, yeah, all bets are off. What was learned in the intervening 500-600k? And would the Canary Islands still have been a good take off point? Seafaring is a game changer. Walking from Beringia to Chile has been estimated to take about two thousand years by a Berkeley professor years ago. By boat, 5-6 years along the coast.

For those that were not aware of Flores, such as myself:

1997
Fission-track ages of stone tools and fossils on the east Indonesian island of Flores

2006
Early stone technology on Flores and its
implications for Homo floresiensis

[Minimalist]

I have said this before during similar discussions with the "early man walked everywhere" crowd. Even if you are on land, you are not going to cross the Columbia River Estuary,



without a boat or at least a raft. With sea levels lower the river would have been even longer and thus wider by the time it reached the ocean. There would have been extensive marshes on either side. No one in their right mind is going to walk through that if there is an alternative.

How many river crossings would there be on the southern Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon route?

[Minimalist]

I have said this before during similar discussions with the "early man walked everywhere" crowd. Even if you are on land, you are not going to cross the Columbia River Estuary,



without a boat or at least a raft. With sea levels lower the river would have been even longer and thus wider by the time it reached the ocean. There would have been extensive marshes on either side. No one in their right mind is going to walk through that if there is an alternative.

How many river crossings would there be on the southern Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon route?

[hardaker]

"How many river crossings would there be on the southern Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon route?"
They didn't have to because they used the ice free corridor.

[uniface]

? !

[Minimalist]

Oh, yeah..... ice free. Can you imagine how muddy that would have been!

[hardaker]

and totally bleak. not much growing up there. and to think about it, it was probably fairly wet, and maybe even a lake?
Gliders!